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3.36pm on Feb 11, 2019

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3.35pm on Feb 11, 2019

Bougainville Copper has just told the market about proposed changes to the mining laws by the Autonomous Bougainville Government. The new laws would allow Bougainville Advanced Mining Ltd "to be issued with a special mining licence with scope to grant the company large-scale mining leases over all land in Bougainville, without adherence to the robust requirements of the current [laws] to protect the rights of landowners".

Bougainville Advanced Mining, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands is 40 per cent owned by Caballus Mining, which is owned by Jeffery McGlinn, according to Bougainville Copper.

"We understand the mining bills will be the subject of a series of regional public hearings by Bougainville's legislation committee through to the end of February, with the committee's report to be tabled in March before the bills are further considered."

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3.27pm on Feb 11, 2019

The S&P/ASX 200 has closed down 10.6 points at 6060.80, a drop of 0.2 per cent.

The big four banks and Bendigo & Adelaide bank dragged on the market, with Bendigo & Adelaide bank down nearly 7 per cent to $10.39. Bank of Queensland is down 4 per cent to 10.2 per cent. The finance index ended the day down 1.1 per cent.

Spark Infrastructure dropped 6.4 per cent after an unfavourable tax ruling, and index heavyweights CSL and Telstra both softened ahead of their half-year results this week.

It was miners and off-shore earners that gained today. The materials index out-performed with a rise of 1.5 per cent today. BHP Group is up 2 per cent to $36.04, Fortescue is up 3.5 per cent to $6.25, and gold producer Northern Star is up 4.3 per cent to $8.81. Amcor rose 1.9 per cent to $14.56 after its half year results showed the US-denominated results delivered a 13 per cent growth in Australian dollar dividends.

2.50pm on Feb 11, 2019

Shares in beef-producer Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) have dropped below $1 for the first time since 2003 after it revealed extensive damage from recent floods caused one cattle station in the Queensland Gulf region to suffer "extreme losses" of livestock. The share price is down 12 per cent to 93.5 cents in afternoon trading, wiping $75 million from the company's market capitalisation in one day.

AACo's major shareholder is AA Trust, with 44.85 per cent of shares. AA Trust is an investment vehicle for the Tavistock Group, a Bahamas-based investment fund founded by British businessman Joe Lewis. It told the market this morning that four properties in western Queensland were severely affected by rain.

"Wondoola station has been most affected and its current herd of approximately 30,000 head of mainly composite cows and their calves is expected to sustain extreme losses," it said. Wondoola is south of Normanton, below the Gulf of Carpentaria.

2.07pm on Feb 11, 2019

Shares in listed investment company Flagship Investment are down 1 cent to $1.70 after it announced a 12 per cent decline in its portfolio for the six months ending December 2018. Flagship is managed by EC. Pohl & Co. Total income for the half-year was a $1.9 million loss, compared to a $3.5 million profit for the same period in 2017.

"In Australia, continued political, economic, and social upheaval fostered uncertainty throughout the 2018 calendar year and tempered expectations for growth. Further disorder with the Liberal Party has meant continued volatility, despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison's best efforts," director Emmanuel (Manny) Pohl wrote in the half-year results posted today. FSI is paying a fully franked interim dividend of 4 cents per share on 1 March, up 6.7 per cent from last year thanks to the Rio Tinto share buy-back. Net tangible assets per share dropped from 198.2 cents at 30 June, 2018, to 178.6 cents at 31 December, 2018

"It would be reasonable to expect with a number of factors that created uncertainty in 2018 now diminished, a positive outlook in 2019 would prevail. However, the lag effect of market uncertainty at the end of the year and unresolved trade tensions between China and the US will moderate confidence in the new year," Dr Pohl told investors.

1.40pm on Feb 11, 2019

The financial sector is down 1.4 per cent in afternoon trading, compared to a broader 0.4 per cent drop in the S&P/ASX 200 to 6047 points. The health sector, utilities, and communications stocks are also underperforming.

Banking analyst with CLSA, Brian Johnson, says bank stocks have more or less held onto the surge they received from the banking royal commission report being published. But the banks are facing long-term sluggish growth becuase "the revenue environment for the Australian banks is slowing dramatically". This is due to slowing credit growth, rising wholesale costs, and fading net interest margins (NIM) as mortgagees switch oir change products such as from interest-only to principle-and-interest loans.

He points out that since early 2015 the four banks' combined market capitalisation has dropped from 32.4 per cent of the ASX 200 market cap down to 23 per cent of the ASX 200.

Mr Johnson says only one bank stock offers value at the moment and that is NAB, which is down 1.9 per cent to $24.26 today. NAB shares reached a 7-year low of $23.59 on Monday, 4 February, the morning before the banking royal commission report was released.

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1.02pm on Feb 11, 2019

Australian manufacturing giant Amcor is in "advanced discussions" with regulators in the United States, Brazil and Europe to secure approvals for a multibillion-dollar buyout of a major American rival after the original time-frame blew out due to the US government shutdown. Shares are at the highest price since August 2018 today with a 1.5 per cent rise to $14.50.

Amcor, a $16 billion packaging manufacturer, had initially hoped to complete its $9 billion all-stock buyout of Wisconsin-based Bemis by the first quarter of 2019 – a combination that would make Amcor the largest plastic packaging company in the world. But the expected date was pushed back to the second quarter of 2019 due to regulatory delays caused by the partial US government shutdown.

The update on the takeover of Bemis was delivered as Amcor released its financial results on Monday for the six months to December 31. Its underlying after-tax profits increased by 3.4 per cent to $US328.5 million, excluding the impact of currency swings, the company said. Its net profit of $US267.6 million for the half-year was down from $US329.7 million for the same period a year earlier. Amcor lifted its interim dividend by half a US cent, or 2.4 per cent, to 21.5 US cents. But following the fall in the Australian dollar, the interim dividend for Australian shareholders will be 29.78 cents – an increase of 13.8 per cent on the previous year – to be paid on April 1.

12.51pm on Feb 11, 2019

The Takeovers Panel issued a Declaration of Unacceptable Circumstances this morning in relation to a proposed de-listing of the $129 million iron-ore miner Flinders Mines by major shareholder TIO (NZ) Limited, saying the proposed delisting was likely to coerce shareholders to sell their shares in an uncompetitive markets. Flinders Mines shares are up 15.6 per cent to 3.7 cents today.

On 13 December, 2018 Flinders told shareholders it had applied for de-listing and received in-prinicple approval from the market regulator, the ASX. Flinders is 55.6 per cent owned by TIO (NZ) Limited (shares are held by the Todd Corporation) and OCJ Investment owns 22 per cent. It offered to buy unmarketable parcels of shares for 7.5 cents per share, a to buy 10 per cent of shares on issued at that price, to be funded through a $27 million loan from TIO. Shares closed at 3.5 cents that day. A week later Flinders convened a general meeting for 22 January, 2019.

But the Panel, which received complaints in January from shareholders, found this offer was likely to see shareholders rushing to sell as soon as possible at any price for fear of missing out. The general meeting has been extended to 26 February.

12.11pm on Feb 11, 2019

Morgan Stanley has initiated coverage of Sandfire with a "overweight" recommendation. The broker says the share price at current levels reflects no upside from exploration opportunities. "The current share price of $7.26 a share is comparable to our base case valuations for DeGrussa and cash alone ($7.06 a share), implying high potential market upside from any Black Butte project or exploration success," analyst Rahul Anand wrote. A one-year extension of the DeGrussa copper and gold mine could be worth $148 million or 94 cents a share. Risks to Morgan Stanley's view include a weaker copper price, production delays, or below-estimate copper grades. The broker's base case valuation is $8.40 a share.

Sandfire shares are currently up 0.8 per cent at $7.45.

11.43am on Feb 11, 2019

The toll from the devastating floods hitting north Queensland has spread to ASX-listed businesses, with the Australian Agricultural Company confirming that four of its 21 properties had been "severely impacted" by the flood event and that one station was expected to suffer "extreme losses" of livestock. Incitec Pivot also updated the market on the impact of the floods, revealing that the rail closure between Townsville and its Phosphate Hill facility would reduce its earnings. Incitec Pivot is down 3.4 per cent to $3.26, the lowest price since 2 January.

In a statement to the ASX AACo said the four properties had been subject to "unprecedented levels of flooding not seen before in the Gulf region," adding that the overall impact of the floods on the cattle company's fiscal 2019 earnings was expected to be material. As investors absorbed the news shares in AACo slumped as much as 8.5 per cent (9 cents) in morning trade to a low of 97 cents. At 12.20pm it had recovered slightly and was hovering around 99.5 cents.